Friday, 19 October 2012

AAA-LARM!!

With Sisters of
Sorrow, Adam Gauntlett takes Trail of Cthulhu and Pelgrane Press back to the
Great War for a third time. Previously, in Not So Quiet – available in the
anthology, Out of Time, the author had us visit a field hospital on the Western
Front, whilst he let us take to the air in Flying Coffins to serve with the
Royal Flying Corps and face an aerial antagonist the like of which the pilots
had never seen. For this third scenario, the author switches to not just
another theatre of war, but another side too! The protagonists of Sisters
of Sorrow are part of the crew of UC-12,
a U-Boot in the service of the Kaiserliche Marine. In other words, the players
get to be the Germans! This is not as radical as it sounds, after all, the very
first story that H.P. Lovecraft had published was “The Temple,” which related
the events that led to the loss of the U-29.In Sisters of
Sorrow, the UC-12 is a mine laying
Unterseeboot, an unarmed submarine tasked by the Kaiserliche Marine to cut its
way through the nets that protect England’s harbours and lay mines as close as possible
to disrupt shipping. This is a dangerous task. Not only is there the
possibility of the detection and being sunk by the Royal Navy, but the actual
laying of the mines can sink the submarine too! There is supposed to be a delay
before a laid mine rises to the surface, but sometimes the delaying mechanism
fails and the mine rises under the submarine and detonates! (This is where the
title of the scenario comes from, for such mine-laying vessels were known as “Sisters
of Sorrow”). For the crew, live aboard is damp, smelly, and unpleasant.Assigned to penetrate the North Sea defensive zone
and lay mines off Tyneside, UC-12 and her crew must contend
with more than the routine of avoiding the Royal Navy and other shipping on its
way to England. Strange noises seem to reverberate through the hull from the
outside – could they really be whale song? This and other strangeness seems to
be affecting the crew – have they been cooped up too long in the noxiously
narrow atmosphere of UC-12? Or is it that water has been
splashed on the batteries and they are giving off chlorine gas?Structurally, Sisters of
Sorrow is a reasonably straightforward, somewhat linear
adventure. That though, is due to it being a military based adventure and not a
criticism. Within the linear structure though, there is never time for the
story to lag and there is always something for the player characters to do. If
there is a criticism of the scenario structure it is that the player character
roles are primarily reactive, although this is primarily aimed at building
atmosphere and tension before there is the opportunity for more proactive play
towards the scenario’s climax.One interesting aspect to Sisters
of Sorrow is when it is set. Not just during the Great War,
but in the war’s early years. The submarines of the Kaiserliche Marine follow a
nineteenth century Prize Code under which her crews must warn those of the
ships that they attack so that due time is allowed for them to abandon ship.
Although the UC-12 does have a machine gun, it is by no
means an attack boat, which together with the terms of the Prize Code mean that
the crews’ actions will be limited against the outré threats faced in Sisters
of Sorrow. This complication, in combination with the
descriptions of life aboard the Unterseeboot, is counter to the romantic,
almost chivalrous notions that we have about submarine warfare.Sisters of
Sorrow is a one-shot scenario designed for play with six
characters, that should not last more than two sessions. The scenario includes
six pre-generated “investigators” – the Executive Officer, Chief Engineer,
Radio Operator, Helmsman, Engineer, and Mechanic. As written, the
scenario tells the story of their first, and quite possibly their last,
mission. No advice is given on how to create characters if the players do not
like the pre-generated ones included, as essentially they could take the role
of any one of the fourteen man complement of UC-12. That
said, the Military Template given in Trail of Cthulhu
will probably be all that a Keeper and player alike will need. It is intimated
though, that the role of the Kapitan be not taken by a player, primarily in the
short set of play test notes that should help the Keeper further when it comes
to running Sisters of Sorrow.Although there are no notes on whether or not it
could be run using a British crew and a British submarine, there is nothing to
stop an inventive Keeper from adapting it so. Similarly, an inventive Keeper
could easily adjust it to the Second World War if he so chose. One of the
issues in changing both sides and period is that the limitations of the design
of UC-12 would be lifted. Submarines operated by the Royal
Navy in the Great War, and by all sides in World War Two were substantially
better armed and this has the potential to curtail certain elements of the
scenario.Physically, Sisters of
Sorrow is a twenty-three page, 4.26 Mb PDF. Done in murky
grays and greens throughout, it is well written and neatly presented. It is
lightly illustrated, but every piece by Phil Reeves is excellent, and even if
the cover is perhaps tentacularly misleading, elsewhere he draws more
inventively from the text to more disquieting effect.Like the previous adventures, Not
So Quiet and Flying Coffins,
this scenario could easily work as a flashback to explain how a character
became aware of the Mythos. The character does not even have to have been
aboard UC-12. It could be that the character’s brother or
father was aboard and that in playing Sisters of
Sorrow, what is being played is not a flashback, but the
events of the father’s or brother’s journal which was recovered… Sisters
of Sorrow is all about the infectiousness of paranoia and
desperation in confined spaces. After all, nowhere could be more confined than
an Unterseeboot in the middle of a Royal Navy blockade in the North Sea when
the danger comes from below.

For Your Information

A gamer for over thirty-five years, Pookie has been reviewing games and saying mostly nice things about them for ten of them. His reviews have appeared in Steve Jackson Games' Pyramid and Journal of the Traveller's Aid Society, Campaign Magazine, Games International, The Unspeakable Oath, at OgreCave.com, and elsewhere. Currently they appear regularly at Reviews from R'lyeh.

He has edited titles for Triple Ace Games for the Sundered Skies setting; for Goodman Games' Age of Cthulhu line; for Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay; for Call of Cthulhu from SixtyStone Press; and various others.

Other facts about Pookie:

He is English.He likes tea.

He has been known as Pookie since he was seven.The nickname has nothing whatsoever to do with small bears and is more leptoidal in nature.The Klingon in him is fond of prunes.